The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

MURDER suspect Donna Vasyli’s hope for pre-trial release now rests with the Court of Appeal who will hear the Crown’s challenge to a judge’s decision to grant her $200,000 bail.

Justice Bernard Turner took one day to consider the constitutionality of a provision of the Bail Act that allows the Crown’s notice of intent to appeal to serve as an automatic stay against a bail order.

It was this provision that was cited by prosecutor Neil Braithwaite on Tuesday in response to Justice Turner’s announcement that absent trial judge Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs had granted the 54-year-old Australian widow a bond ahead of her trial in connection with the March 24 slaying of her millionaire podiatrist husband Philip Vasyli.

Elliot Lockhart, QC, and Murrio Ducille challenged the provision, however.

Mr Lockhart, who reminded the judge of his unrestricted legal discretion, argued that his client’s release would not negate the effect of the appeal.

However, Justice Turner noted on Wednesday that he was duty bound to allow the provision to take effect because it was a lawful and mandatory provision.

The Crown would have until Thursday afternoon to file an appeal to be in compliance with the 48-hour window provided for in the Bail Act or Vasyli would have to be released.

Vasyli would ultimately be making a third appearance before the appellate court concerning bail since the judge’s initial refusal of a bond within days of her March 30 arraignment.

Concerning her latest application, Senior Justice Isaacs had approved bail after giving consideration to the health concerns raised by counsel at her bail hearing on July 9.

The judge, in his written ruling delivered Tuesday, came to the decision after considering a number of authorities, including Hurnam vs Bradley Ferguson.

“Whether she appears for her trial may have seemed a difficult question on her first and second bail hearing days and weeks after her arrest respectively, but there is much more gravamen to the applicant’s assertion that she will, including the fact that she has family, two homes and a business in the Bahamas,” the judge noted in his ruling.

“Additionally, as her case has taken on a certain notoriety, it appears in her home country of Australia, as well as in America, I expect as she has a son that lives in Florida, those countries I assume would not welcome her before her trial is disposed of.”

The judge further determined that her lack of antecedents made her an unlikely danger to society or will interfere with the course of justice.

“I would be remiss if I did not add my own observation that the applicant has become much thinner than when I first saw her, and it would be a blight on our prosecutorial system were she reduced to a chronic state of ill health,” the judge said, adding that while death in custody “always results in a national spectacle, in this case, it would result in an international one.”

Vasyli, as conditions to her bond, would need two suretors to post bail.

She would also have to surrender her passport to the court, be fitted with an electronic monitoring device, be placed under house arrest until the completion of her trial and report to the Lyford Cay police station three days a week on or before 6pm.

The accused has been in the state’s custody for the past four months.